Merry Xmas...: The total UK personal debt at the end of October 2011 stood at an incredible £1,451,000,000,000 - an average household debt of £55,808 according to the financial education charity Credit Action...

The Eurozone is at a tipping point. EU leaders are in disarray and have no clear strategy for resolving the crisis.
Fragmentation of the Eurozone could trigger another deep financial crisis and global economic downturn. Lynn Walsh, Editor, Socialism Today, monthly magazine of the Socialist Party, analyses the crisis.

Banks continue to demand government bailouts; an ever-deepening sovereign debt crisis in Europe and the USA; mass unemployment and cuts in services on a level not seen since the 1930s; a widening gulf between rich and poor....

In a recent address to the Canadian parliament, David Cameron bluntly said: "Growth in Europe is stalled. Growth in America has stalled. The effects of the Japanese earthquake, high oil and food prices have created a drag on growth. We're not quite staring down the barrel, but the pattern is clear".

Greece has recently experienced a barrage of strikes by different sections of the working class - involving transport workers, teachers, some council workers, taxi drivers, mental health workers and others - against the Pasok government's latest austerity measures...

Strike back on 30 November: Once again recklessness is bringing the banks into even further disrepute. UBS bank has 'lost' $2.3 billion due to the antics of 'unauthorised' trader Kweku Adoboli, writes Tony Mulhearn, Liverpool Socialist Party.

Pawn shops are booming, pound stores are multiplying. But spending on services and retail (apart from food) has slowed to a standstill. Socialism Today editor Lynn Walsh looks at the effects of Con-Dem cuts on the UK economy.

Capitalist strategists are filled with gloom at the prospect of a new economic downturn. Fear of recession in the US, its credit rating downgrade and political dysfunction, not to mention the ongoing eurozone. Lynn Walsh reports.

Capitalists unable to stop the turmoil: As their system continues to slide further into its worst crisis since the 1930s, the frantic efforts of world capitalist leaders to reverse the process are farcical, contradictory and ineffective, writes Clare Doyle

A video of a young man telling London's Tory mayor Boris Johnson that he shouldn't be surprised at the riots, because "everything has a knock-on effect, Boris!", has taken social networking sites by storm, writes Sarah Wrack.

The price of capitalist failure: Governments in Europe and the US are making working class people pay for the crisis caused by the bankers and the capitalist system.
The Greek bailout, welcomed by the European ruling classes, will do nothing for the Greek masses

Workers resist Pasok's savage cuts and privatisation programme: Greece's deepening sovereign debt crisis is threatening to destroy the eurozone and trigger a worldwide banking collapse, according to the International Monetary Fund...